Google Buzz Finally Signs Off From The Web

Google’s social network Google Buzz is finally going down , exactly eighteen months after the search engine giant announced that it will be shutting down Google Buzz, the time has finally come for the service to shut down completely. Google recently sent an official email to Buzz users, stating that as of July 17, 2013, Google will remove the posts from its public servers and archive them to users Google Drive accounts. Google Buzz sent the email to its users as stated below: Dear Buzz user, In October 2011 we announced Google Buzz was shutting down. On or after July 17th, 2013, Google will take the last step in the shutdown and will save a copy of your Buzz posts to your Google Drive, a service for storing files online. Google will store two (2) types of files to your Google Drive, and the newly-created files will not count against your storage limits. The first type of file will be private, only accessible to you, containing a snapshot of the Google Buzz public and private posts you authored. The second type of file will contain a copy of only your Google Buzz public posts. By default it will be viewable by anyone with the link, and may appear in search results and on your Google Profile (if you’ve linked to your Buzz posts). Note, any existing links to your Google Buzz content will redirect users to this file. Any comments you made on other users’ posts will only be saved to those users’ files and not to yours. Once the change described in this email is final, only that user will be able to change the sharing settings of those files. This means that if you have commented on another author’s private post, that author could choose to make that post and its comments public. If you would like to avoid that possibility, delete all your Buzz content now. The new Google Drive files will only contain comments from users that previously enabled Google Buzz, and the files will not contain comments that were deleted prior to moving the data to your Google Drive. Once the files are created, they will be treated the same as any other Drive file. They are yours to do with as you please. This includes downloading them, updating who can access them, or deleting them. Before these files are created, you can view the Google Buzz posts you have authored here. If you do not want any of your Buzz posts or comments saved to Google Drive files, you can immediately delete your Google Buzz account and data. Thank you for using Google Buzz. Buzz was shut down in October, 2011, but never actually died. Believe it or not, everything that you had (if you had anything) on the old platform is still available. That finally ends in July after nearly 2 years of staying around on the web. Google Buzz was Google’s early attempt at capturing the social networking space, something that failed to due a lot of inherent flaws in the platform. It integrated already existing networks like Facebook and Twitter and was quite similar to them in a way. Users could also choose to “ like ” an article on platforms like Google Reader, straight from Gmail or their mobile. The privacy concerns with the product were epic and the service also did not attract users with path-breaking features. Google buzz therefore failed miserably and Google dabbled with Google+ in June 2011, which I frankly believe isn’t going any nearer to the path of Google Buzz. Google+ recently updated its Android app with photo enhancements and improved location sharing. On that count, Google has been looking to integrate location apps into its plethora of web services and products, and is known to have entered into a bidding war with Facebook for maps app Waze. Did you use Google Buzz? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Image Courtesy | shifters Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency